Olympus E-P3 and Photoshop ACR - finally!

Olympus E-P3 12mm f/2

Last night and before this mornings bid from Sony to dominate the Professional, Enthusiast, DSLR and CSC photographic markets all at once from here on in, (they may well succeed!) there was another announcement that gave me great pleasure. Photoshop ACR 6.5 has finally been released. 

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cameraraw6-5/

Finally I've been able to see what the raw files from the Olympus E-P3 look like, processed in decent software. Rawker gave me the sharpness, but very flat colour and a lot of noise, and the Olympus software gave me files that looked just like the jpgs. Finally. I've been able to see what the camera is capable of.

Olympus E-P3 Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4

Olympus E-P3 12mm f/2 

Olympus E-P3 14-42mm

Olympus E-P3 Panasonic Leica 25mm f/1.4

And its capable of a great deal. 

It seems to me it is an improved sensor. 

ISO 200 looks as good as ISO 100 on previous cameras without the dynamic range problems.

A head to head comparison with the NEX-C3 (which the update also supports) produced sharper results for me than the Sony. (I can now do a proper test)

The 12mm f/2 is a stunning lens on the E-P3.

The 25mm f/1.4 is an even more stunning lens on the E-P3.

Following on from that last sentence, I'll be spending the rest of the day trying to sort out this "aperture clicking", which is really annoying. It doesn't do it at all indoors in low light, but since I spend most of my time photographing in bright sunlight, when it does do it, I have to find a solution.

No matter how good the NEX-7 is, it will never look as beautiful as the E-P3. I know thats not a good reason to buy it or justify my keeping it around.............  or maybe it is!!

Olympus E-PL1 and Photoshop - "Correct" Exposure

Olympus E-PL1 14-150mm

While I've been very impressed with what Capture One Pro from Phase One can do, I am unsure as to whether I'm going to buy it when my trial period runs out. Firstly its expensive, though they are offering a 30% discount until 28th August. Secondly, its more complicated and takes longer to process images than Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. Thirdly, its not really how I like to work. I prefer a simpler raw conversion that lets me do the majority of the work I want to on a file in Photoshop, rather than in the raw conversion software.

Olympus E-PL1 14-150mm

Olympus E-PL1 14-150mm

The trial I have downloaded also lets me try out the Express version of the software, though the nice thing about the Pro version is that it lets me open the files immediately in Photoshop.

I have tried most of the raw converters on the market and as I wrote yesterday this version of Capture One is the best I've ever used. The question is whether I want to go for the extra "complication" of stand alone software, even though it does integrate with Photoshop.  It is very tempting, since some of the files I've produced are very impressive and it does do a very good job with m4/3 files.

Olympus E-PL1 14-150mm

However, using Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw works very well too. All the files in this post were processed using that combination. I wrote yesterday about the need to expose and "develop" carefully with m4/3, in order to get the best out of it. While I think the criticisms regarding the more limited dynamic range of m4/3 are often overstated, there is no doubt that it is more prone to blown highlights than other larger sensor formats. Particularly when it is also the case that the default metering settings of all the Panasonic and Olympus cameras that I have used have a tendency to over expose for my tastes.

I generally have all my m4/3 cameras set to - 0.7 in terms of exposure compensation, and this, more often than not gives me the exposure that I find most accurate. In fact, I do this with most of my cameras. It happens with both my Nikons and there has been a lot written in forums about how the Nikon D7000 has a tendency to over-expose slightly. While I can understand doing this in point-and-shoot compacts when the users probably won't make any adjustments to the file after taking the shot, it does seem a little strange in cameras that are aimed at a different market.

I'm not advocating deliberate under exposure here, I'm actually talking about getting the exposure correct. There is this theory that with digital cameras, you should expose to avoid having to lift the shadow areas, because thats where noise can be generated. However that does assume that you get the exposure right in the first place. Also using the new Sony 16MP sensor in the NEX-C3, Nikon D7000, Pentax K-5 etc. there are far less problems in exposing for the highlights, as that sensor allows shadow areas to be lightened quite dramatically with no or very little increase in noise.

I wrote a piece on it here:- http://soundimageplus.blogspot.com/2011/01/pentax-k-5-three-lenses-low-iso.html and this image, taken with a Pentax K-5, shows what you can do.

Pentax K-5 15mm F4 lens

Micro Four-Thirds is not quite as forgiving as this, though here's an example where I've lifted the shadows with no great increase in noise.

The other great advantage of continuing to work with Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw, is familiarity. I feel that I've only begun to scratch the surface with Capture One Pro, and the question is do I want to allocate the time to learning all its possibilities. I have no doubt that this would be a worthwhile exercise but whether I decide to do that remains to be seen.

Olympus E-PL1 14-150mm

Olympus E-PL1 14-150mm

Photoshop and Premiere Elements

Panasonic have a current deal whereby after buying a camera you can get a gift pack which includes copies of Photoshop and Premiere Elements software. I sent away for mine and they arrived a few days ago. 


The Premiere package is excellent. I had a tutorial with Ben who uses the full Premiere programme. He was impressed with what the version contained and how it compared well with the complete version and I was impressed by the fact that I understood it! I could actually see myself using it. My pathetic attempts to work with (understand!) Final Cut Express had left me thinking I would be restricted to iMovie, but I was encouraged by how user friendly Premiere Elements seemed to be.


I also installed a copy of Photoshop Elements. 
I have a somewhat ancient (4 years old) Macbook and thought that I would use it on that. It would be useful when I'm working away for example. I'm currently using Photoshop CS4 on it, and it works OK though a little slowly. I thought the elements version might run better.

Unfortunately this wasn't the case. It runs incredibly slowly. Way slower than Photoshop CS4. I was also expecting a cut down version of the full Photoshop. A programme that would basically be the same but with features missing. Not so again. I recognised very little in this elements version. After a few hours battling away with it I decided to give up. I actually disliked it as a piece of software and thought it very strange that it should be so different from its parent software. Plus the fact that it took for ever to do anything.


I've been using Photoshop for a long time now and am pretty familiar with it. I worked with Lightroom a while ago when it was in its beta form, but never really got on with the interface. I really only used it because it had extra parameters in the raw conversion section that Photoshop at the time didn't have. When these turned up in the next version of Photoshop I went back to that. 


I bought a copy of Aperture when it first came out, but have never liked it. It is such a slow working programme, with an interface I don't like. Having to import all my pictures into a folder structure imposed on me by the software isn't what I want to be doing. 

Adobe Bridge has had its problems, usually related to the speed at which it works, but it lets me organise my images in the way that I want and it integrates very well with Photoshop.


In the light of my experiences with Photoshop Elements, I would suggest that using an older version of Photoshop might be a better option. These versions however don't deal with the latest raw file formats, but that can be overcome by using the latest version of Adobe Digital Negative Converter, which can be downloaded free from Adobes Website. The Dpreview site always has a link to the latest version. This converter lets you convert your raw files to the .dng format. You can also convert your files to be backwards compatible with earlier versions of Photoshop, so its a very useful piece of software. Ever since it came out I've always converted my files to .dng, the files are usually smaller and its nice to have them in one format. I've never found any difference whatsoever from the manufacturers files, nor have I seen any difference in the compressed .dng files. 


David 

Filters or Photoshop

Back in the days of film, picture libraries and agencies required submissions to be on colour transparency film. This meant that all images had to be created in-camera with no opportunity for any changes to be made. This gave rise to the use of filters. Particularly to deal with contrast. With landscape photography there could often be a significant difference between the sky and the land, for example, and the way of dealing with this often involved the use of graduated filters.


The top picture and the following two were all taken on a Pentax 645 Medium Format film camera with a grad. grey filter attached.








I always found grad filters a pain to use. I had to carry around a holder, a collection of adapter rings for different lens threads plus a selection of filters, 1 stop, 2 stops etc. They slowed everything down somewhat. They were also made out of resin, attracted dust like a hoover and scratched very easily. However at the time, there wasn't much alternative. There's almost a genre of landscape photography created by them. I call it 1980's coffee table book landscape. 


Since going digital I've stopped using them, preferring to use Photoshop to post-process and correct any contrast problems that way. There are a variety of ways to that. This is one of the simplest quickest and most effective.





By using the quick mask in Photoshop I lightened the houses and the cliff, using a curves preset, then reversed the mask and darkened the sky. So long as I don't lighten more than about a stop, there is virtually no noise generated.


I used the same process for the picture below.





I much prefer this to using grads., and its a good deal more flexible because of the straight line of the grad., which makes them useless if you have trees etc. against the sky. After practice I am able to to use the mask to carefully select the areas I want to alter, and because the mask has a very soft edge, it does usually give a natural look. Some pictures with grads., attached can be very artificial looking.


There's an article on filters by Ken Rockwell at http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/filters.htm and while I wouldn't agree with everything he says, its a good read.


Words - D
Images - D & A

Photoshop CS5 Leica Dust Spots

Because of continued crashes with Photoshop CS4 we have had to buy CS5. Since this works in 64-bit, some of the plug-ins that we use, and in particular our Noiseware Professional plug-in, are not available, since they only work in 32-bit. We can use this by starting Photoshop in 32-bit mode, but this restricts the ram to 2 GB. Photoshop seems to restrict ram in 32-bit on the new intel i7 macs, which probably doesn't help the crashing, so we want to run CS5 with the maximum ram available. This means that we run it in 64-bit, but can't use the plug-in. A frustrating situation.


Since are happy with how Noiseware Professional works and don't want to use other software, we will have to wait for them to get round to upgrading it. In the meantime we have lots of M9 files that need editing and need the dust-spots removing.


In desperation we turned to Dust and Scratches in the CS5 filter menu. We haven't used this for years as it was rather crude. However the version in CS5 seems improved and proved very useful in cleaning up blue skies. Not completely without problems, particularly with the edges of the areas we wanted to work on, but it does mean that we can get these M9 files edited, and uploaded to our stock photography websites. It may, and I stress may, be possible to consider using more than one lens on the M9, though this will have to involve regular sensor cleaning.


We need to experiment more to see if we can get better results, but there are hopeful signs that this may speed up our editing process with regard to the M9.























Words - A
Images - D & A

Photoshop CS5 / Open Air Art

PHOTOSHOP CS5.

The images in this post are processed using Photoshop CS4. Strange you may think considering previous posts about CS5 and the new features, particularly the new raw processing and content aware fill.

We have had the trial version of CS5 for 30 days and that has just run out. Normally we buy the upgrade automatically, but this time decided to try before we buy.

We have decided to stick with CS4 for the following reasons.

1) CS5 crashes repeatedly on our i7 iMac.

2) Most of the new features seem more for graphic designers than photographers. (Well these photographers at least)

3) Content aware fill, while seeming incredible is very hit and miss. When we really needed it to sort out a difficult area, it usually comes up with nonsense. It works well on the easy stuff, but then so do the previous tools.

We find that using our previous techniques, of cloning, patch tool, warping and skewing achieves the same results in about half the time.

4) The new raw processing engine, while seeming better initially, doesn't seem to offer any advantages in final image quality. Since we mainly develop "flat" we haven't seen any significant improvements in our files.

5) For some reason the latest version of camera raw has removed support for the Samsung NX10, a camera we use extensively.

6) CS4 absolutely flies on the i7 iMac.

So for the first time since buying Photoshop 4 in 1996 we haven't upgraded to the latest version of Photoshop. To be honest we would have probably done it anyway if it didn't crash all the time. However we see no reason to upgrade to a unstable buggy version.

OPEN AIR ART

A recent visit to a local stately home showed the trend for such places to display "works of art" in their public outdoor spaces. At our local such estate this involves some garishly painted benches.

There is also this amazing..... sculpture?? Looking like something from an Ann Summers catalogue it gradually looms into view at the top of an uphill path through the grounds. Looks like an instrument of torture (or pleasure possibly depending on your tastes!!!)

It seems unlikely that the creator was unaware of the visual similarities to something that needs a battery and we are unable to come up with a satisfactory explanation of what it means other than the obvious. If you have any suggestions, then please keep them to yourselves as we would probably get into trouble publishing them!

Images D & A.

Samsung NX10 Photoshop CS5 iMac i7 Technology driven images

There have been many posts here about creating Panoramas using panoramic stitching software such as photomerge in Photoshop or PTGui. One of the advantages of stitching using multi images is to produce very high definition files with a high pixel count suitable for large scale reproduction. Doing this means that you don't necessarily need to use a camera with a lot of MP.

The disadvantage of doing this has been the time taken to produce these images. Anyone who has done it will realise that the software needs to analyse and then warp and blend the images into a seamless whole. There is often touch up work to be done later plus cropping and usually further warping and scaling to produce a final image. This often means anything up to a 1000% increase in the time needed to produce one finished picture.

During the recent excursion along the River Avon we decided to take a lot of images for the specific purpose of stitching them together later. Since the trip was unplanned we only had the Samsung NX10 plus the 30mm f2 lens with us. We duly produced about 150 files which when combined would provide the raw material for 18 "stitched" images.

Since the iMac i7's arrival we had tried creating a few "stiched" images using photomerge & we were impressed by the increase in speed. Also using Photoshop CS5 we had noticed that Adobe have tweaked the software again & there is a marked improvement in its ability to produce wide panoramic images.

However this time we decided to use PTGui. This is very good, simple to use software which we would highly recommend. One particular advantage that this software has is the ability to batch process. We consequently used this to process our River Avon images.

PTGui is fast working software and it has recently been optimised to process even faster. However we weren't quite prepared for the extraordinary performance that it produced on the new iMac. It was actually producing finished Panoramas in seconds. The 18 Panoramic stitches were created in around under 1/2 hour. Thats less than 2 minutes each! This was using jpgs rather than raw files and the 8 rather than 16-bit option. However we find that neither working from raw files or using 16-bit produces better images anyway. The files were then ready for editing in Photoshop. Again the work time was much reduced. The iMacs quad cores speed everything up and Adobe have done a good job in optimising this version of Photoshop to achieve significantly better performance. We had noticed improved speed over CS4 on our old iMac. A nice change to use upgraded software and find that it works faster. The usual equation of upgrading your computer to get better performance & then finding that once you upgrade your software the manufacturers have added so much that you are back where you were before doesn't apply here.

So overall an illuminating exercise. Shooting multi-image stitched panoramas is now not the chore it once was. There has been some reluctance on our part to shoot many recently because of the work load involved. The improvements in both processors and software, that we are now able to take advantage of, has made creating these stitched images a pleasure again.

The camera never lies!!! - Photoshop CS5

A couple of examples using the new content aware fill from Photoshop CS5.

This is quite remarkable technology. Areas of sea are notoriously difficult to work with using clone and pattern tools. This new tool makes it possible to seamlessly remove unwanted elements from an image easily and quickly.

Below is a Panoramic image created from 6 separate images. As is usual the finished stitched panorama has uneven edges and would usually require a lot of warping and distorting or cropping to get it looking right. Now by selecting the white outer areas and applying the content aware fill, the blank areas are filled in. It takes more editing to get rid of some edges but again it produces a seamless result.

Photoshop CS5 Extended is available as a fully working 4-week trial from:-

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/

Make or Take?

There's a difference in how photographers describe what they do. Some say they "take" a photograph, others claim to "make" one. I always used to think that the latter was pretentious nonsense, but now I'm not so sure.

I always used to claim that I "take" photographs, but when I actually think about what I do to an image then thats probably self-delusion on my part.

I see the problem starting because cameras don't take an accurate representation of what our eyes see. There is the three dimensions into two issue. The way our eyes can handle extremes of dynamic range and how a camera/lens combination can't. Then there's the issue of how lenses alter the image. Can a fish-eye lens ever be regarded as a valid representation of reality? Well only if you're a fish I guess.

The first thing we would all have to take on board is whether any manipulation of an image actually causes any harm. We all know of instances where altered images have been used as propaganda and have in many instances caused significant damage and even death. Also an image can be changed to imply guilt when there is none and vice versa. We've all seen paparazzi pictures. If someone is keen to present a "celebrity" in a bad light to justify a story, sticking a wide angle lens into their face and firing a flashgun should do the job nicely.

So where does an "enhanced" landscape image fit into this.

As a long-time landscape photographer and supplier of images to travel markets I have been "guilty" of "improving" many of my images. Is this justified? Does it cause any harm? It could be argued that I'm misrepresenting a place, making it look better than it is. Someone may book a holiday on the basis of my picture and be disappointed when it doesn't turn out to be as "scenic" as anticipated. Likewise, even the most beautiful places in the world have certain angles which can "misrepresent" them. A picture of the rubbish dump at base camp on Mount Everest would give a significantly different impression of one of natures masterpieces.

There is obviously a difference between such images as these and the kind of obscenities produced by Joseph Goebbels for the Nazis, but is it just a matter of degree? As photographers we all know that what comes out of our cameras is only a representation of the reality we encountered first hand. How often have we said - "It looked better than that" and then proceeded to enlist photoshops assistance in making it look how it felt?

I have no answer or set of personal rules to any of this. My "editorial" choices are also influenced by the fact that this is how I make a living. The fact that my highly saturated landscape images shot in "great light" sell better than than those of a plainer nature has not gone unnoticed.

I have certainly changed my mind about how I create images. I most definitely "make" them. When I shot on transparency film there could be some justification in the claim that I was to a certain extent representing reality, but the use of different film stock, polarisers, grad and warm-up filters all contributed to my images not being as "pure" as they might have seemed. With digital I have no excuse whatsoever. When I open up a raw file on my screen, not all but many things are possible.

I guess if we all only ever used the in-camera jpgs untouched then we may be closer to the "truth" However what about "long-exposure" images of water? Are they photographic "fictions" in the same way as star trails, multiple exposures and montage, something you never see in reality and can only exist as photographs?

When I said I have no rules I actually do have one. When working on a landscape image I always ask myself "Could it have looked like this?" If the answer is yes then I will send the image out. If not I'll ease back on the alterations.

I'm not photographing for a political cause, I'm not a social documentary photographer looking to raise certain issues and there is no agenda in my work other than to say - "This place is great, you should see it." A great deal of my work is also "generic" created to be used in combination with other graphics, text etc. This is generally not specifically identified and the notion of misrepresentation is irrelevant.

There can be a difference between "art" & "journalism". However do those who view our work realise the distinction between the two. Does someone who views one my travel pictures realise that it might be my "artistic impression" or do they think that its an 100% accurate representation? I have no idea.

Do I feel "guilty" about manipulating or enhancing? Well not really. Should I feel "guilty" about it? That I can't answer. Does doing what I do cause any problems? I would hope not, but I cannot be sure. It would be great if I could put some sort of "health warning" underneath each image - saying something like "This image was created by the photographer, it is a representation of, not a true record of the place depicted" But since thats not possible I just have to hope that my "pretty pictures" are viewed in the spirit in which they were created. Whether that happens is anyones guess.

Words - D

Images - D & A

More on the Lightroom 3 Beta.

After a very good initial response to the new Adobe Lightroom Beta released yesterday I spent yesterday working with it on the backlog of images I have waiting to be edited.

When the very first version of Lightroom was released it was in beta for a long time, and I got very familiar with it then. At the time it included many raw development parameters that Photoshop didn't have so I found it very useful. These were then incorporated into Photoshop so I stopped using it.

I started using this new version as it has support for the Canon 550D and I was interested to see what it could achieve with the outstanding files I had from that camera. Certainly my initial impressions were favourable and a full days work with it yesterday confirmed this.

I'm particularly impressed by the way that it handles noise, CA and fringing. The default settings produce very clean and sharp files and I had to spend far less time in Photoshop. There is a very real difference in how Lightroom processes raw files as opposed to the current 5.6 version of Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop and the Lightroom files look significantly better to me. I was particularly pleased with my Leica M9 files and my Canon 5D Mk II files were easily the best I've got out of that camera. Dpreview found an improvement too:- http://www.dpreview.com/news/1003/10032402lightroombetaupdate.asp

I'm a bit unfamiliar with the interface these days, but by the end of the day was finding ways to speed up the process.

It will be interesting to see whether these improvements in raw processing transfer over to the new version of Photoshop, announced yesterday.

However its something I would recommend you having a look at. Since at the moment it's free, its an easy recommendation.

Finally it even managed to get some decent results from a whole pile of Pentax K-7 files I have waiting. Not great but reasonable & better than I was able to achieve with either Photoshop or Pentax's version of Silkypix.

Words - D

Images - D & A